Pharmacoepidemiology. Drug utilization studies. Part 2. Review of studies published in Spain / Farmacoepidemiología. Estudios de Utilización de Medicamentos. Parte 2: Revisión de trabajos publicados en Espa a

Objective: To describe drug utilization studies (DUE) carried out in Spain, published in the last five years, identifying their methods, limitations, and practical applications. Methods: A survey of DUE published from January 1999 to November 2003 was done. The following issues were analyzed: institutions, type of study methods, data gather period, data sources, results availability, practical suggestions and practical and limitations. Results: Primary care is the most studied environment, being hospital related researchers those who published more. Cross-sectional retrospective quantitative consumption studies are the most common; as the limitations related to data sources. Average lag time since the last year included into the study and publication year is about two years, and average study duration was 41 months. Conclusion: Results obtained show the necessity of performing longitudinal qualitative studies. A global implementation is expected, if available resources are used.